If you have visited a land based casino lately surely you have noticed that newer and newer technology is being used. Take the slot machines for example. You will no longer find the old mechanical slots. Instead you will find modern, electronic ones. Some casinos have even replaced the dealers from 21 games with machines. If you want a card then the computerized dealer will give you one.

But what determined this sudden rise in popularity of these machines? It was not long ago that players did not trust them and did not take to the introduction of machines to gambling. Well, the answer is very simple. Big jackpots. Since machines can all be part of the same network, they can offer bigger jackpots. And it is these jackpots that draw the players to the machines. Let's look at slots for example. A single machine can offer a modest jackpot. But connect a few thousand machines together and you will get a very big and very attractive jackpot.

When you look at all these machines and all the recently introduced technology, one thought comes to mind. Are they secure? Do they have any weaknesses that one can take advantage of? We all know that computer networks are not 100% secure. Computer hackers have been exploiting these weaknesses for years. So how safe are Las Vegas gambling networks?

The first thing that you should know is that casinos invest a lot of money into their networks and machines. We are talking about big money here, and the casinos do not want to lose any of it. That is why high end computers are round the clock scanning and re-scanning slots networks for example.

They are looking for irregular winning patterns and fluctuations in betting patterns. IGT oversees this entire system, and whenever someone wins a jackpot an IGT employee will be dispatched. He will give the winner his prize money, but he will first check the machine for any signs of interference.

If you are a known cheater then you will have a hard time trying to gamble in any of the casinos that use face recognition technology. They have poured big money into this technology and are able to recognize a known cheater even if he is in disguise. If airports had this technology we wouldn't have terrorist problems any more. It is extremely efficient, but only because the casinos could afford the big money needed to develop such a technology.

The moment you step into a casino there is a surveillance camera watching you. No matter what you do, the cameras are right there to see you. The data from the cameras is feed to the facial recognition software. This means that your face is scanned and compared to a data base of known cheaters. And if that wasn't enough, casino employees are trained to keep an eye out for any suspicious activity. Casinos spend a lot of money in order to make it harder and harder for cheaters, and it is now nearly impossible to cheat and get away with it.

It is our honest opinion that you are better of trying to hack the Pentagon that trying to cheat the casinos out of their money. Their networks are extremely safe, and that is because they invest big money to keep them as safe as possible. Anyone trying to hack into a casino network is well advised to reconsider his actions.